Year Walk - Simogo - PC (2014)

A Year Walk, as developer Simogo describes, is a Swedish Tradition where a man would lock themselves in a dark room for the whole day with no food or water and, at the stroke of midnight, would walk to the closest church to understand what the New Year would bring. The practice is thought to be dangerous, all kinds of creatures and myths were said to accompany the Walker on their journey. The Walk was set to show the future, good or bad and could be known to show the Walker an almost binary set of visions. Either vastly positive, or terribly negative.

The setting for Year Walk is a reserved and greyscale forest, Simogo have done a great job creating this aesthetic of the winter’s evening. There’s an overlay of snowfall that doesn’t obstruct your view and the snow on the ground seems to give off a tainted glow, it’s pretty much perfect for the title. This had to be done right or else the game runs a risk of not being taken seriously. The game itself is a First Person 2D affair. The control system for the PC version translates as well from the iOS original as you would expect.

The overall gameplay is a series of puzzles and exploration with the occasional jump scare. In my opinion jump scares can often cheapen a title, but they are used sparingly and well. The puzzles are tough without being mind-numbing and the way the world has been created keeps you interested in exploring it further. There’s plenty of side puzzles and intricate touches that will keep you asking questions and be left wondering if there is any further story to be found within the white wasteland of the forest.

Its music and sound use is also solid. Simogo use sound and music as a gameplay mechanic in some parts of the game. In one particular section I was following a beautifully horrible siren song through the forest and wondering to myself. “Do I really want to know what’s making this?” The sound and music are menacing and when you couple all of its elements together, the sum of Year Walk’s parts is a handsomely developed project. It’s a game that grabs you and holds your attention through its solid use of its elements and I really feel that they had a plan in place, stuck to it rigidly and never questioned their convictions. This is especially true when looking at their case of creatures who inhabit the world.

When you are on your Walk your character will encounter creatures from, what Simogo claims, is Swedish Mythology. Without giving any spoilers away, these beings are well-written and interesting and each come with their own myths attached to them. The stories are creepy and unforgiving and some of them are exceptionally brutal. I find it difficult to believe that what Simogo have said is Mythology is true however, as after a pretty lengthy search online I have found absolutely zero information on these creatures. Left with a feeling of being cheated, I came to realise that if these are entities created by Simogo I tip my hat to them. The reason I went digging for more information was to learn more about these Myths, as they all seem deep. The quality of the myths and the writing that describes them found in the in-game Encyclopaedia is fantastic. To the point where I thought they had just pulled these characters straight out of Folk Tale books!

If I could present one criticism to the title it would be that it is very short. I have the feeling that it was developed with replayability in mind but when one of your achievements is to complete a full walk within 20 minutes, it does make you question the amount of content present in the game. Simogo can be almost forgiven for this considering how nice their world is, and it was originally developed for the tablet market. It’s frustrating that, as a gamer, I would like to experience more of this world. I can’t help but wanting more, it might sound like an entitled rant but I loved this world so much that I feel it needs to be fleshed out more to fully appreciate their vision. Of course, this does run the risk of diluting their, seemingly, own mythology. The lack of a volume slider is also a critical part of the PC port that has been missed. It’s not a huge problem, but it is easy enough to incorporate and clearly has been forgotten about due to the nature of iOS devices.

I applaud Simogo for trying something just that little bit different. There’s not many games that dabble with any sort of Mythos, never mind create their own and feel that this developer has a lot of creativity present in their studio. If you don’t believe me then take a look at another other critically acclaimed iOS title they developed by the name of Bumpy Road. This is a developer who isn’t scared to make the games they want to make and for me, are realising titles to an exceptionally high quality and originality.

If you have a bit of cash sitting there and feel like something a little out of the ordinary I would certainly recommend Year Walk. It might only take you a few hours to work through but I’m sure it’ll be memorable for some time to come. 

Review written and published on Universal Gaming